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I have recently tried my hand at coding, and as CrossCode turned into a fun and interesting game I figured I should try to make a game using the same language, but with HTML5 it seems that it was meant to run the browser. Is CrossCode still being made in HTML5? and if so how did they make it so it was not run in a browser?

yeah CrossCode is still made with HTML5. We use NW.js to create a standalone desktop application. It's essentially a chromium browsers with extras that we ship together with the HTML5 code base.

In my opinion, creating games with HTML5/JavaScript is pretty fun but it might not be the best way to get into programming/game development in general. Using a more strict language like Java/C# is better to get a good grasp of basic programming principles and if your goal is creating a game first an foremost, it's usually better to start with an existing engine.

As stupid as it sounds: we also started with an Engine and it was RPG-Maker. It's a very simple engine but even working with that was a major experience for us, since it taught us how game content can be structured effectively (in particular for RPGs). In the end we developed our own engine and it happened after several years of experience with RPG-Maker, Java, C++ and especially a lot of experience working with JavaScript/HTML5. Developing your own game engine is a risky thing so only do that if you really have a lot of fun with programming and really enjoy working on challenging problems (like physics engines, rendering code etc.) Even if you like to do that, expect the game development to take a lot longer (it's part of the reason CrossCode has been in development for 6 years now)

In the end, the choice of language is secondary. You need to find a framework and language you like working with. Knowledge with game engines is far more important.